WIP Chapter (The Stretch)
Alright, I know this was supposed to be on Fridays, but I have a busy day, so it is one day early.
I have been thinking of what to put on here, and have decided on the first (and only) chapter of a WIP. I will continue to write it, if people think it is not bad, or it will be shelved and probably never seen again. So here it is, chapter 1 of "The Stretch" I hope you guys enjoy it.
The Stretch
Time does not exist in the traditional sense. Not the way people think anyway, eternity is one long endless moment, time is man made, measured by the earth, sun and moon, there movements and rotations cut down into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. Life revolves around this basic rule, your watch ticking away in measured time, counting away relentlessly, moments lost to the past never to be seen or experienced again, but that is just an illusion, our solar system is a speck of sand on a huge beach of space, does one speck of sand dominate the beach? Does it determine the rules? Our tiny planet and ant like selves do not dominate time, our sun and moon are not the gate keepers to time, the universe is just too big to be bossed around by us, and nature laughs at our measurements. Time is still, it does not move, objects move and grow and die, but time does not, everyone has it back to front, time does not move forward, we do, we move on from those moments we wish we could experience again, those memories that are so dear to us, the longing for the past haunts us all in some way. Those moments and memories are not lost, they have never moved, we have, by getting older, by the earth getting older, by accepting time has moved on, that it is all in the past, but I realized the obvious truth and started working on a project that would stop me moving, to keep me still, and I knew if I could achieve that, then I could also move back in time as everyone else would believe, but it is simply stretching space, bridging the gap from here to there, stepping outside of the ticking clock and not being dominated by its rules makes it possible. I just needed to build the bridge once I was on the outside and still, not moving forward in time second by ticking second, I needed to stop in order to build the bridge and stretch space so I could move freely outside of the rules. I achieved this goal, I created a device I named the Stretch, it breaks through space, and time is no longer a factor, space is not simply a black nothingness, it is more like an ocean, waves of black are everywhere, the movements of space crashing against each other, the Stretch is a machine that warps the space, designed like an arrow head or strange looking small plane, it vibrates at a frequency that breaks down the barriers and stops the movements, which stops time and keeps everything still, frozen like a statue, space folds and warps into each other because of the vibrations creating tiny pockets, or black holes, that is the entry to what people call the past, but something that is right in front of you is not the past, it is the present, you just have to walk through a door once the bridge leads you to it. How did I do it? That is a question not easily answered, but the really difficult part was controlling time, to find any door and choose where I wanted to go, at first it was random, the frequency I used was to stop time and create pockets, I needed the frequencies that would allow me to move anywhere at any time, I was stuck in the year 1908, that was where the first pocket I opened took me, the Stretch did not move, space did, surrounding me and my machine like a wave of water, stopping time and sending me back, it was still, I was in a field and life did not move, a horse was eating grass and the sun was shinning. A farmer was stood with a shovel in hand looking up at his scarecrow who was not doing his job, a crow sat on his hat, I imagined it was mocking the farmer and laughed at the sight as I looked around in amazement. I got out of the Stretch and walked up to the farmer, clicking my fingers and waving in his face for signs of life, but he was still, I continued up to his farm house a short distance away and entered with guilt, I am not a fan of invading peoples privacy, and stood in a kitchen. It was a typical farmers kitchen, pretty much the way you would imagine any old wooden farm house kitchen to be like, everything was made out of the same wood with a huge oven made out of stone, and two rabbits hung upside down from a beam ready to be skinned for a meal. I sat at the breakfast table and picked up a news paper, February 2 1908 was the date.
“I can move objects, time is not still, it must be moving forward at an infantesimal rate” I said to myself. I stood up from the table and approached the door which I had left open and peered out. The farmers shovel was being held a foot from the ground, and it was previously standing upright against the earth. I quickly made a calculation in my head, the amount of time I had been there and how far the shovel had moved and worked out a basic and approximate number of how slow time was moving. I ran back to the Stretch and sat in the leather seat before punching numbers into the computer, I adjusted the frequency and the Stretch began to vibrate before a pocket enveloped me once more, sending me to another time and place. It was a desert, as far as I could see there was dusty white sand, I remained in the Stretch and began my complicated calculations, I assumed time was completely still now, and I was on the outside of its rules, that was the first step to breaking time wide open and creating a time database on my computer system, in theory I could map doorways and read the frequency automatically. The Stretch would work out the mathematical code of time, and that would give me full access, time would bend to my will and I could go anywhere by simply punching the date into the Stretch which would work out the frequency and open the door, sending me to my desired destination. It took me only a few short hours, time is not as complicated as people would believe, or so I thought. I completed my database and sat smiling to myself. I should really go back there in the Stretch and shoot myself, and stop the devastation that was about to come, but in my experience, it would probably make things worse. I now knew that wherever I went time would move forward normally, and I would be able to experience it all as it happened, but I never thought about the dangers, no mathematical sum could work out the solution and conclusion of a two minute stay in one place. I chose a date at random to test out my database and the accuracy of my frequencies. I chose the date 1885 and appeared in what was a small village, I did not know where I was, I did not enter a destination, which is just longitude and latitude, and a lot of mathematical equations to work out so that I could choose an exact location. I had thankfully created a cloaking device for the Stretch using a series of mirrors, but it was still dangerous and could easily be found, I was on a patch of grass near a large oak tree and decided to move the Stretch closer to it where some bushes could help keep it safe. Having moved my machine and protected it from sight as best I could, I walked down the road and looked around at the living past, life was all very normal and quiet, just people living there lives as always, children played in the dirt and mothers rubbed at dirty cheeks as they chided them. Women washed cloths in barrels of water and men worked the farms and drank ale. It was what appeared to be a poor village, but I supposed most places must look like this in 1885, nothing but dirt path ways and no toilet facilities, I stepped around human and animal mess more than once. I was pleased with my accomplishment of reaching back in time, but the thrill I was expecting was not there, I walked down the road and felt deflated. I walked passed a few little shops, one selling vegetables and another was a blacksmith, a horse suddenly whined loudly and galloped away from its owners reach, it was heading towards a young girl who was carrying a huge sack of what looked like potatoes, she could not see over the top of it at the danger that was coming, a cart was rattling after the beast who was obviously full of fear and used for carrying things around. The girl stood with an open mouth unable to move when she finally caught sight of the furious horse who came within a few feet of stomping her into the ground, but I ran to her aid and pulled her away from the stomping horses fury before she was killed. A man pulled at the horse and calmed it down before leading it away.
“Are you alright?” I asked the girl as I helped her to her feet after dragging her to the ground and away from flaying hoofs.
“Yes I am fine, thank you, sir” She answered looking down at her feet and looking scared.
“You are welcome, what is your name?” I said feeling sorry for the girl who did not look happy.
“Klara, sir” The girl said slightly curtsying.
“Klara! What happened girl!?” A man said shouting from a distance as he walked at a quick pace down the road towards us.
“She was almost killed by a horse, sir” I said to the man as he reached me and looked me up and down with a look of disgust.
“That so?” He said to the girl who nodded in reply. “I am Alois, and this is my servant, thank you for your assistance” He tipped his hat grudgingly and took the girl by the arm, leaving the scattered potatoes on the ground and pulling her away.
“Your welcome” I muttered to myself as I I walked away and got back to the Stretch.
“Getting out of this place” I shook my head at the lack of enthusiasm I had, and punched in the date September 19th 2019, my 32nd birthday, I missed my party because I was working on the Stretch, time to put that right I thought. The Stretch vibrated as the frequency took me home to my own time. I was in a basement, it looked like my basement only different, old and full of dust and cobwebs. I scratched at the stubble on my chin as I thought, before getting out of my seat and looking around. It was my basement alright, but my tools and blueprints and equipment were not there, and the stairs were different leading up to the door in the kitchen. I walked up the stairs and opened the old door with my shoulder because it was stuck, nobody had been in the house for a long time. As I suspected the house was empty and had not been lived in for years, the kitchen was bare and the windows had boards of wood covering them from the outside. I kicked the back door of the house open after several failed attempts to open it, and stepped outside. Everything was different, the houses, the road, the lamps, everything was old and falling to pieces.
“Is this the wrong time, or have I changed everything?” I said in shock as I stepped back into the house and down to the basement, I sat back in the Stretch and checked the date, it was correct, I then linked up to the world wide network, which was the same by some miracle.
“I only met two people, this must have happened because I saved that girl” I muttered to myself as I wrote “1885, Klara, Alois” into the search engine. I did not really expect to get any results back, but what I saw shook my soul and made me vomit over the side of the Stretch as I looked at what I caused. Alois and Klara where married and had children, one was called Adolf, Adolf Hitler, and he was described as the most evil man that ever lived, his German army stormed across Europe and the second world war caused five years of death and destruction, I skipped the details of how and why, it did not matter, what did matter was that I saved that girls life and it caused a world war, the second world war, in my history there was only one war. Then I continued my research and discovered many other things had changed, scientific discoveries like the cure for the common cold had never been discovered, but organ transplants were now every day things, that was new for me. It appeared that not all of the changes were bad ones, but the deaths of countless people in a world war trumped all of the good changes, and I was in a state of shock, confusion, and self loathing at changing the world. A thought suddenly came to me, and I did a search on my family. My grandfather died in Belgium just a year into the war, he was a pilot and crashed, he lived for a day, but his injuries were too severe. My father was never born, meaning I was never born, one of my theories had been proved correct by this piece of knowledge. I still exist even though I was not born, people do not simply vanish, it does not matter where they come from or about the past, I stopped my father being born which means I was never born, if I am never born then I can not go back and stop him being born, its the old chicken and egg problem. Which comes first? I never understood that question, the answer is the egg, chickens do not spring from the air, who knows where the egg came from? who cares? chickens are born from eggs, simple. I was born, I am alive, history has changed but that does not change me, or where I came from, I had lost my grandfather and father, but what about my mother? The world changed on an enormous scale, the odds of any of the same people existing was beyond impossible, but to my surprise she was alive. Her parents were American, and the Americans entered the war late, but her family was in Canada in the 1940s, maybe the same things happened even though the war broke out, whatever the answer was it did not matter, she was alive and living in Miami according to the information I found online. I am the son she never had. I decided to go and see her, I found her address and phone number, I had no idea what a cell phone was, or as some people call them, mobile phones, quite simple really, I felt quite inferior when seeing my first cell phone, maybe this new timeline was better in more ways then I had thought. Although I would still trade it for the old timeline, and no world war two. I called her number from a phone box, which took me hours to find, but the number was no longer in use, so I went to Miami to find her. I did not know why I was going, I was a stranger to her, she would not believe me if I told her the truth and she would not want to talk to a stranger, she always avoided talking to people she did not know. Do people have the same personalities growing up with a different future? I thought at least some part of her would be recognizable as the mother I had once known. I waited outside of her apartment building for two days, there was a bench across the street and I sat there waiting for her to come out or to turn up and go in, but I never saw her. I had hidden the Stretch by placing it in a fountain a few miles away, I hoped nobody climbed in or threw a coin that would clank against it. I was relieved when I reached the fountain and climbed in while nobody was looking and sat in the seat, hidden from peoples gazes by the cloaking device. I was still working on a hand held control that could faze the machine out of time slightly, making it invisible and untouchable, in theory I could park it in the middle of a road with no problems, and no fear it would be discovered, a few simple equations and it would faze back in to step with the time I was in, but like I said I was still working on it, and I could not make a mistake and risk losing the Stretch, I had to take extra care. I came up with another plan to find my mother, I had a DNA scanner, I dropped a little of my blood on to the glass plate and slid it home, a lot like an old car CD player, only more ingenious. The scanner read the DNA sample and located the same DNA in every record available on file through the world wide network. Once it found a match, it automatically brought up a file on the person, and a map with a little red dot indicating the exact location of the person in real time. It was a traffic cam that had found my mother, it took minutes, and I shook my head tiredly at being so stupid.
“Why did I not just do this in the first place?” I said to myself mockingly. I think I wanted the surprise of seeing her, me just sitting on the bench and her just walking down the street, and in to her building. Sentimentality had cost me two days and I had no sleep in that time, so it would cost me another 12 hours or so to sleep, I had to be sharp and fully alert, and I forced myself to have those 12 hours, even though I just wanted to go and see my mother. I knew it was stupid and pointless, but I thought if I saw her one last time I could say goodbye and move on, then I could perform a new experiment. I was so stupid, I thought it was harmless, people make thousands of decisions a day that map out there fate. Turn left down the road, or turn right? Have coffee, or have tea? Have that extra 5 minutes in bed, or get up early? Say good morning to your boss at work, or don’t, and just go straight to your desk? Decision after decision, for everyone, I wanted to see the impact and difference to the world by one decision. I remember thinking the Hitler mistake was just bad luck, I could have saved anyone else in the world and nothing would have changed. Such a fool. After my 12 hours of sleep and rest I decided to go see my mother, she had stopped at a hotel. She was still in Miami, so I went and sat in the bar. It was really expensive by the look of the carpets and tables, you can tell from a glance what sort of prices you had to pay in a place like that. Even the barman who was arranging bottles of liqueur looked like he was from a wealthy home. One glance at his gold watch told me that. He looked like a head waiter, and I thought it amusing that a wealthy young man like him had to work in a hotel bar. His parents probably owned the place, it was the only explanation I could muster up, unless the hotel payed stupendous amounts of money to there workers, which was not likely. I sat and looked around, thinking why my mother would even be here, she had a home and she did not live far away, maybe she was rich and just wanted a change, but I doubted it. Her apartment building was nice enough, but not that nice, not nice enough to live if you are filthy rich, like the people who go to five star hotels. Eventually she appeared, I spotted her walking down the stairs, from her room I imagine. She wore a long red dress and healed shoes, with a face full of make up and her hair held up elaborately, her heels clicked and clacked as she entered the bar and sat a few seats away from me. I was nervous, and just kept glancing at her as she looked down at her phone.
“What can I get for you my friend?” The barman asked me suddenly snapping me out of my half daze.
“Sorry, I was miles away, whiskey and ginger please, and a Martini for the lady” I answered him and nodded to my mother from another life. She looked up with surprise.
“Thank you, Martini is my favourite drink” She said to me with a happy smile.
“Yeah it is my mothers favourite drink, you look a lot like her, it is quite unnerving actually, but in a good way” I added the last four words quickly, making her laugh, the same laugh, same smile, but different hair, and a stronger accent.
“Well that is nice, but I hope your mother looks 23, then I can be flattered” She said laughing before gulping down her drink in one mouthful and clicking her fingers for another, which she also gulped down, barely giving the barman time to place the drink on the bar.
“Looks like you have had a hard day, if you don not mind me saying?” I said to her as she continued clicking her fingers for more drinks.
“Every day is hard, and I do mind you saying, just because I am drinking a lot you think you can make comments, and insinuate things, just like all men, but do not worry, I do not hold anything against you” She smiled at me with a side glance as she put her glass to her lips and slowly drank it dry to make her point.
I sat back shocked, she was different, a lot was the same but she was very different in a lot of ways. The way she sat, the way she drank, her overall presence was just different. That is not my mother, my mother is gone I thought as I drank my whiskey in one and paid the barman.
“It was nice to meet you” I said before turning and leaving, she waved her hand without looking, and I felt stupid, I should have known she would not be the woman I knew. I turned at the door for one last glance as she gulped down another drink. She could put the drink away, that made me think she had problems, but so did everyone, and I doubted she would want my help, she certainly did not want me commenting on her day or her drinking. I was a stranger, and she was a stranger to me. I returned to the Stretch to continue my work on my remote, but I could not focus. My mind was full of memories of my mother and father, I had destroyed that life, and I could not imagine how many others. I was a man of science, and I would continue my experiments, I believed I could shape the future, and every time I changed something, bad things would follow, but also good things, I had already discovered so many new things, and already had the information saved to my computer on the Stretch. Everything that was discovered in my original timeline and the new was all there. If I changed it again, would humanity come up with the answers to other problems? These ideas and thoughts over took those of my family, and I knuckled down to work. Withing six hours my remote was ready, and I was ready to change the world again.
I have been thinking of what to put on here, and have decided on the first (and only) chapter of a WIP. I will continue to write it, if people think it is not bad, or it will be shelved and probably never seen again. So here it is, chapter 1 of "The Stretch" I hope you guys enjoy it.
The Stretch
Time does not exist in the traditional sense. Not the way people think anyway, eternity is one long endless moment, time is man made, measured by the earth, sun and moon, there movements and rotations cut down into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. Life revolves around this basic rule, your watch ticking away in measured time, counting away relentlessly, moments lost to the past never to be seen or experienced again, but that is just an illusion, our solar system is a speck of sand on a huge beach of space, does one speck of sand dominate the beach? Does it determine the rules? Our tiny planet and ant like selves do not dominate time, our sun and moon are not the gate keepers to time, the universe is just too big to be bossed around by us, and nature laughs at our measurements. Time is still, it does not move, objects move and grow and die, but time does not, everyone has it back to front, time does not move forward, we do, we move on from those moments we wish we could experience again, those memories that are so dear to us, the longing for the past haunts us all in some way. Those moments and memories are not lost, they have never moved, we have, by getting older, by the earth getting older, by accepting time has moved on, that it is all in the past, but I realized the obvious truth and started working on a project that would stop me moving, to keep me still, and I knew if I could achieve that, then I could also move back in time as everyone else would believe, but it is simply stretching space, bridging the gap from here to there, stepping outside of the ticking clock and not being dominated by its rules makes it possible. I just needed to build the bridge once I was on the outside and still, not moving forward in time second by ticking second, I needed to stop in order to build the bridge and stretch space so I could move freely outside of the rules. I achieved this goal, I created a device I named the Stretch, it breaks through space, and time is no longer a factor, space is not simply a black nothingness, it is more like an ocean, waves of black are everywhere, the movements of space crashing against each other, the Stretch is a machine that warps the space, designed like an arrow head or strange looking small plane, it vibrates at a frequency that breaks down the barriers and stops the movements, which stops time and keeps everything still, frozen like a statue, space folds and warps into each other because of the vibrations creating tiny pockets, or black holes, that is the entry to what people call the past, but something that is right in front of you is not the past, it is the present, you just have to walk through a door once the bridge leads you to it. How did I do it? That is a question not easily answered, but the really difficult part was controlling time, to find any door and choose where I wanted to go, at first it was random, the frequency I used was to stop time and create pockets, I needed the frequencies that would allow me to move anywhere at any time, I was stuck in the year 1908, that was where the first pocket I opened took me, the Stretch did not move, space did, surrounding me and my machine like a wave of water, stopping time and sending me back, it was still, I was in a field and life did not move, a horse was eating grass and the sun was shinning. A farmer was stood with a shovel in hand looking up at his scarecrow who was not doing his job, a crow sat on his hat, I imagined it was mocking the farmer and laughed at the sight as I looked around in amazement. I got out of the Stretch and walked up to the farmer, clicking my fingers and waving in his face for signs of life, but he was still, I continued up to his farm house a short distance away and entered with guilt, I am not a fan of invading peoples privacy, and stood in a kitchen. It was a typical farmers kitchen, pretty much the way you would imagine any old wooden farm house kitchen to be like, everything was made out of the same wood with a huge oven made out of stone, and two rabbits hung upside down from a beam ready to be skinned for a meal. I sat at the breakfast table and picked up a news paper, February 2 1908 was the date.
“I can move objects, time is not still, it must be moving forward at an infantesimal rate” I said to myself. I stood up from the table and approached the door which I had left open and peered out. The farmers shovel was being held a foot from the ground, and it was previously standing upright against the earth. I quickly made a calculation in my head, the amount of time I had been there and how far the shovel had moved and worked out a basic and approximate number of how slow time was moving. I ran back to the Stretch and sat in the leather seat before punching numbers into the computer, I adjusted the frequency and the Stretch began to vibrate before a pocket enveloped me once more, sending me to another time and place. It was a desert, as far as I could see there was dusty white sand, I remained in the Stretch and began my complicated calculations, I assumed time was completely still now, and I was on the outside of its rules, that was the first step to breaking time wide open and creating a time database on my computer system, in theory I could map doorways and read the frequency automatically. The Stretch would work out the mathematical code of time, and that would give me full access, time would bend to my will and I could go anywhere by simply punching the date into the Stretch which would work out the frequency and open the door, sending me to my desired destination. It took me only a few short hours, time is not as complicated as people would believe, or so I thought. I completed my database and sat smiling to myself. I should really go back there in the Stretch and shoot myself, and stop the devastation that was about to come, but in my experience, it would probably make things worse. I now knew that wherever I went time would move forward normally, and I would be able to experience it all as it happened, but I never thought about the dangers, no mathematical sum could work out the solution and conclusion of a two minute stay in one place. I chose a date at random to test out my database and the accuracy of my frequencies. I chose the date 1885 and appeared in what was a small village, I did not know where I was, I did not enter a destination, which is just longitude and latitude, and a lot of mathematical equations to work out so that I could choose an exact location. I had thankfully created a cloaking device for the Stretch using a series of mirrors, but it was still dangerous and could easily be found, I was on a patch of grass near a large oak tree and decided to move the Stretch closer to it where some bushes could help keep it safe. Having moved my machine and protected it from sight as best I could, I walked down the road and looked around at the living past, life was all very normal and quiet, just people living there lives as always, children played in the dirt and mothers rubbed at dirty cheeks as they chided them. Women washed cloths in barrels of water and men worked the farms and drank ale. It was what appeared to be a poor village, but I supposed most places must look like this in 1885, nothing but dirt path ways and no toilet facilities, I stepped around human and animal mess more than once. I was pleased with my accomplishment of reaching back in time, but the thrill I was expecting was not there, I walked down the road and felt deflated. I walked passed a few little shops, one selling vegetables and another was a blacksmith, a horse suddenly whined loudly and galloped away from its owners reach, it was heading towards a young girl who was carrying a huge sack of what looked like potatoes, she could not see over the top of it at the danger that was coming, a cart was rattling after the beast who was obviously full of fear and used for carrying things around. The girl stood with an open mouth unable to move when she finally caught sight of the furious horse who came within a few feet of stomping her into the ground, but I ran to her aid and pulled her away from the stomping horses fury before she was killed. A man pulled at the horse and calmed it down before leading it away.
“Are you alright?” I asked the girl as I helped her to her feet after dragging her to the ground and away from flaying hoofs.
“Yes I am fine, thank you, sir” She answered looking down at her feet and looking scared.
“You are welcome, what is your name?” I said feeling sorry for the girl who did not look happy.
“Klara, sir” The girl said slightly curtsying.
“Klara! What happened girl!?” A man said shouting from a distance as he walked at a quick pace down the road towards us.
“She was almost killed by a horse, sir” I said to the man as he reached me and looked me up and down with a look of disgust.
“That so?” He said to the girl who nodded in reply. “I am Alois, and this is my servant, thank you for your assistance” He tipped his hat grudgingly and took the girl by the arm, leaving the scattered potatoes on the ground and pulling her away.
“Your welcome” I muttered to myself as I I walked away and got back to the Stretch.
“Getting out of this place” I shook my head at the lack of enthusiasm I had, and punched in the date September 19th 2019, my 32nd birthday, I missed my party because I was working on the Stretch, time to put that right I thought. The Stretch vibrated as the frequency took me home to my own time. I was in a basement, it looked like my basement only different, old and full of dust and cobwebs. I scratched at the stubble on my chin as I thought, before getting out of my seat and looking around. It was my basement alright, but my tools and blueprints and equipment were not there, and the stairs were different leading up to the door in the kitchen. I walked up the stairs and opened the old door with my shoulder because it was stuck, nobody had been in the house for a long time. As I suspected the house was empty and had not been lived in for years, the kitchen was bare and the windows had boards of wood covering them from the outside. I kicked the back door of the house open after several failed attempts to open it, and stepped outside. Everything was different, the houses, the road, the lamps, everything was old and falling to pieces.
“Is this the wrong time, or have I changed everything?” I said in shock as I stepped back into the house and down to the basement, I sat back in the Stretch and checked the date, it was correct, I then linked up to the world wide network, which was the same by some miracle.
“I only met two people, this must have happened because I saved that girl” I muttered to myself as I wrote “1885, Klara, Alois” into the search engine. I did not really expect to get any results back, but what I saw shook my soul and made me vomit over the side of the Stretch as I looked at what I caused. Alois and Klara where married and had children, one was called Adolf, Adolf Hitler, and he was described as the most evil man that ever lived, his German army stormed across Europe and the second world war caused five years of death and destruction, I skipped the details of how and why, it did not matter, what did matter was that I saved that girls life and it caused a world war, the second world war, in my history there was only one war. Then I continued my research and discovered many other things had changed, scientific discoveries like the cure for the common cold had never been discovered, but organ transplants were now every day things, that was new for me. It appeared that not all of the changes were bad ones, but the deaths of countless people in a world war trumped all of the good changes, and I was in a state of shock, confusion, and self loathing at changing the world. A thought suddenly came to me, and I did a search on my family. My grandfather died in Belgium just a year into the war, he was a pilot and crashed, he lived for a day, but his injuries were too severe. My father was never born, meaning I was never born, one of my theories had been proved correct by this piece of knowledge. I still exist even though I was not born, people do not simply vanish, it does not matter where they come from or about the past, I stopped my father being born which means I was never born, if I am never born then I can not go back and stop him being born, its the old chicken and egg problem. Which comes first? I never understood that question, the answer is the egg, chickens do not spring from the air, who knows where the egg came from? who cares? chickens are born from eggs, simple. I was born, I am alive, history has changed but that does not change me, or where I came from, I had lost my grandfather and father, but what about my mother? The world changed on an enormous scale, the odds of any of the same people existing was beyond impossible, but to my surprise she was alive. Her parents were American, and the Americans entered the war late, but her family was in Canada in the 1940s, maybe the same things happened even though the war broke out, whatever the answer was it did not matter, she was alive and living in Miami according to the information I found online. I am the son she never had. I decided to go and see her, I found her address and phone number, I had no idea what a cell phone was, or as some people call them, mobile phones, quite simple really, I felt quite inferior when seeing my first cell phone, maybe this new timeline was better in more ways then I had thought. Although I would still trade it for the old timeline, and no world war two. I called her number from a phone box, which took me hours to find, but the number was no longer in use, so I went to Miami to find her. I did not know why I was going, I was a stranger to her, she would not believe me if I told her the truth and she would not want to talk to a stranger, she always avoided talking to people she did not know. Do people have the same personalities growing up with a different future? I thought at least some part of her would be recognizable as the mother I had once known. I waited outside of her apartment building for two days, there was a bench across the street and I sat there waiting for her to come out or to turn up and go in, but I never saw her. I had hidden the Stretch by placing it in a fountain a few miles away, I hoped nobody climbed in or threw a coin that would clank against it. I was relieved when I reached the fountain and climbed in while nobody was looking and sat in the seat, hidden from peoples gazes by the cloaking device. I was still working on a hand held control that could faze the machine out of time slightly, making it invisible and untouchable, in theory I could park it in the middle of a road with no problems, and no fear it would be discovered, a few simple equations and it would faze back in to step with the time I was in, but like I said I was still working on it, and I could not make a mistake and risk losing the Stretch, I had to take extra care. I came up with another plan to find my mother, I had a DNA scanner, I dropped a little of my blood on to the glass plate and slid it home, a lot like an old car CD player, only more ingenious. The scanner read the DNA sample and located the same DNA in every record available on file through the world wide network. Once it found a match, it automatically brought up a file on the person, and a map with a little red dot indicating the exact location of the person in real time. It was a traffic cam that had found my mother, it took minutes, and I shook my head tiredly at being so stupid.
“Why did I not just do this in the first place?” I said to myself mockingly. I think I wanted the surprise of seeing her, me just sitting on the bench and her just walking down the street, and in to her building. Sentimentality had cost me two days and I had no sleep in that time, so it would cost me another 12 hours or so to sleep, I had to be sharp and fully alert, and I forced myself to have those 12 hours, even though I just wanted to go and see my mother. I knew it was stupid and pointless, but I thought if I saw her one last time I could say goodbye and move on, then I could perform a new experiment. I was so stupid, I thought it was harmless, people make thousands of decisions a day that map out there fate. Turn left down the road, or turn right? Have coffee, or have tea? Have that extra 5 minutes in bed, or get up early? Say good morning to your boss at work, or don’t, and just go straight to your desk? Decision after decision, for everyone, I wanted to see the impact and difference to the world by one decision. I remember thinking the Hitler mistake was just bad luck, I could have saved anyone else in the world and nothing would have changed. Such a fool. After my 12 hours of sleep and rest I decided to go see my mother, she had stopped at a hotel. She was still in Miami, so I went and sat in the bar. It was really expensive by the look of the carpets and tables, you can tell from a glance what sort of prices you had to pay in a place like that. Even the barman who was arranging bottles of liqueur looked like he was from a wealthy home. One glance at his gold watch told me that. He looked like a head waiter, and I thought it amusing that a wealthy young man like him had to work in a hotel bar. His parents probably owned the place, it was the only explanation I could muster up, unless the hotel payed stupendous amounts of money to there workers, which was not likely. I sat and looked around, thinking why my mother would even be here, she had a home and she did not live far away, maybe she was rich and just wanted a change, but I doubted it. Her apartment building was nice enough, but not that nice, not nice enough to live if you are filthy rich, like the people who go to five star hotels. Eventually she appeared, I spotted her walking down the stairs, from her room I imagine. She wore a long red dress and healed shoes, with a face full of make up and her hair held up elaborately, her heels clicked and clacked as she entered the bar and sat a few seats away from me. I was nervous, and just kept glancing at her as she looked down at her phone.
“What can I get for you my friend?” The barman asked me suddenly snapping me out of my half daze.
“Sorry, I was miles away, whiskey and ginger please, and a Martini for the lady” I answered him and nodded to my mother from another life. She looked up with surprise.
“Thank you, Martini is my favourite drink” She said to me with a happy smile.
“Yeah it is my mothers favourite drink, you look a lot like her, it is quite unnerving actually, but in a good way” I added the last four words quickly, making her laugh, the same laugh, same smile, but different hair, and a stronger accent.
“Well that is nice, but I hope your mother looks 23, then I can be flattered” She said laughing before gulping down her drink in one mouthful and clicking her fingers for another, which she also gulped down, barely giving the barman time to place the drink on the bar.
“Looks like you have had a hard day, if you don not mind me saying?” I said to her as she continued clicking her fingers for more drinks.
“Every day is hard, and I do mind you saying, just because I am drinking a lot you think you can make comments, and insinuate things, just like all men, but do not worry, I do not hold anything against you” She smiled at me with a side glance as she put her glass to her lips and slowly drank it dry to make her point.
I sat back shocked, she was different, a lot was the same but she was very different in a lot of ways. The way she sat, the way she drank, her overall presence was just different. That is not my mother, my mother is gone I thought as I drank my whiskey in one and paid the barman.
“It was nice to meet you” I said before turning and leaving, she waved her hand without looking, and I felt stupid, I should have known she would not be the woman I knew. I turned at the door for one last glance as she gulped down another drink. She could put the drink away, that made me think she had problems, but so did everyone, and I doubted she would want my help, she certainly did not want me commenting on her day or her drinking. I was a stranger, and she was a stranger to me. I returned to the Stretch to continue my work on my remote, but I could not focus. My mind was full of memories of my mother and father, I had destroyed that life, and I could not imagine how many others. I was a man of science, and I would continue my experiments, I believed I could shape the future, and every time I changed something, bad things would follow, but also good things, I had already discovered so many new things, and already had the information saved to my computer on the Stretch. Everything that was discovered in my original timeline and the new was all there. If I changed it again, would humanity come up with the answers to other problems? These ideas and thoughts over took those of my family, and I knuckled down to work. Withing six hours my remote was ready, and I was ready to change the world again.
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
H.E.
(new)
Jan 31, 2019 04:11AM
Really enjoyed reading this John. It's very promising and I for one would like to know more.
reply
|
flag
H.E. wrote: "Really enjoyed reading this John. It's very promising and I for one would like to know more."Thank you so much! I have been in two minds about certain pieces I have started, this needs work still, it is just a first draft, but I am pleased you enjoyed it. Thanks for the support!
H.E. wrote: "Really enjoyed reading this John. It's very promising and I for one would like to know more."Just finished chapter 2 and posted it to my blog. it is unedited (forgive any mistakes) if you are interested in reading. Talk soon H.E.
